Current NFL Stars Who Once Dominated the Scouting Combine | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors
Ava Arnold Odell Beckham Jr.'s 2017 season is best forgotten, as he failed to hit 1,000 receiving yards for the first time in his career. He had just 25 catches for 302 yards and three touchdowns in four games before a fractured ankle cut short his fourth campaign in the NFL.
Still, that does nothing to diminish a career that has elevated Beckham to among the league's best wide receivers.
And it began—wait for it—at the 2014 combine.
That year's draft was everything 2013's wasn't.
As Chris Trapasso reported for Bleacher Report at the time, Beckham showed off his blazing speed in Indy, laying down an unofficial 4.31-second 40-yard dash (tops among wide receivers) that included a ridiculous 1.50-second 10-yard split.
Beckham also starred in position drills.
"He cruised through the gauntlet, short sideline, intermediate dig and deep route drills with no drops and made all the catches comfortably away from this body," Trapasso wrote. "With a scintillating 40 time and phenomenally soft hands, Odell Beckham Jr. likely won't last into the second round."
Sure enough, not only was Beckham was a first-round pick in 2014, but he also didn't make it out of the top 15. The New York Giants selected the former LSU star 12th overall.
Beckham got off to a slow start, missing the first four games of his professional career with a bad hammy. In Week 9 (his fourth contest), however, he exploded with eight catches for 156 yards. By season's end, Beckham had topped 1,300 receiving yards and scored 12 times. He was named the 2014 Offensive Rookie of the Year.
Beckham hasn't looked back since, earning Pro Bowl trips in his first three NFL seasons and second-team All-Pro nods in 2015 and 2016.
And oh yeah—there was this.